Erect annual herbs (5-)10-40(-60) cm tall; stems usually sparsely chaffy-pubescent below; roots fibrous. Principal leaves with blades usually slightly longer than broad, ovate, marginally sinuate as well as coarsely toothed, mostly 1-3(-5.5) cm long, 0.5-2(-4.5) cm wide, apically acute, basally rounded to cordate; petioles 0.5-3 cm long, chaffy-pubescent. Inflorescences not secund, often corymbose when young, few-to 40-flowered, pedunculate; pedicels slender, mostly 10-15 mm long at maturity, minutely but densely prickly puberulent, basally bibracteolate with knoblike bracteoles 0.1-0.2 mm long; bracts usually linear to filiform, 2-12 mm long. Flowers 4-6(-7) mm long; hypanthium prickly-puberulent but becoming glabrate especially in fruit, shallowly cupuliform in anthesis, 0.8-1.2 mm high; calyx lobes linear-subulate, entire, 2-4 mm long, gla-brous or marginally ciliate; corolla pale blue to violet varying to white or even purplish, the tube externally glabrous, internally sparingly pubescent, ca. 2.5 mm long, dorsally slit to approximately 1 mm from the base but not fenestrate, the 2 upper lobes erect, ca. 1.5 mm long, the 3 lower lobes rounded and coalesced into a lip 1.5-2 mm long; filament tube 2-2.5 mm long, glabrate, connate for about the upper third, the anther tube 0.5-1 mm long, gray, the 3 longer anthers either glabrous or bristly short-pubescent near the apex, the 2 shorter anthers with a thin fringe of apical bristles ca. 0.1 mm long, otherwise either glabrous or sparingly to moderately short-pubescent. Capsules 1/3 inferior or less, 4-5.5 mm long, 2-3 mm in diameter; seeds ellipsoid, brown, smooth, highly polished, ca. 0.5 mm long.
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